She is merely referred to as ‘Noah’s wife’ the five times she is mentioned (6:18; 7:7, 13; 8:16, 18). What was she like? How did she live?

Her world was different from ours in many ways. The climate
was probably delightful—a sub-tropical paradise protected by a water
vapour blanket (1:7). Warm clothing, wood fires and wet-weather gear were unnecessary
(2:5, 6). On the other hand, the delights of skiing, skating and throwing snowballs
would have been unknown.

Disease would have been less prevalent only about 1,600 years
or so after the Fall (Genesis 3). We’ve had a few thousand more years
for deterioration to occur, for example more deleterious mutations in us, and
in viruses and bacteria. The pleasant climate and protection from radiation
afforded by the water vapour canopy probably promoted good health. Skin cancer
would have been less common.

All of this no doubt contributed to the greater duration of
life. The average man expected to become a father after he was a hundred years
old, and to live more than 900 years. (How long was childhood and adolescence?
Or pregnancy and lactation for Mrs Noah?)

It seems that the development of life was greater too. The fossil
record shows larger animals and plants when compared to the same types found
today. Is this why giants figure in children’s fairy-stories? And there
were no racial problems because there were no races. Dialogue was universally
possible, for everyone spoke the same language (Genesis 11).

In many ways however, Mrs Noah’s world was similar to
ours. Its population was swelling rapidly. Various estimates have been made
from the genealogy in Chapter 5. A conservative calculation based on four children
per family and 18 generations from creation to the Flood gives a population
of about one billion. This is equal to the world population during the first
half of the nineteenth century. Today the world population is about five times
as large. This population may have been spread right around the globe, although
we have no way of knowing for certain what the pre-Flood land area was like.
It might have been one single land-mass (1:9).

No grunting cavemen

Neither were they grunting cavemen, for they had developed many
skills (Genesis 4). The first city was built by Adam’s son, Cain. By
the seventh generation two women were noted for their fashion sense: Ada—whose
name means ‘gorgeously adorned’—and Zillah—‘one
whose presence is announced by the tinkling of her jewellery. (They were the
wives of Lamech, the first bigamist!) There were also shepherds, musical instruments—both
wind and string—metallurgy (bronze and iron) and poetry (by Lamech).

These people with such abilities were descended from Adam, who named the animals in one day!

These people with such abilities were descended from Adam, who
named the animals in one day (1:20), even before his wife was created to help
him! This was before his intellect was spoilt by sin. Our intellects are no
doubt considerably dulled by the ravages of sin. Contrary to popular opinion
concerning those who lived so long ago, Mrs Noah would have been far from primitive.

But one of the greatest similarities between the antediluvian
world and ours was its sinfulness (6:5,11–13): the preoccupation with
sex (6:1,2); the failure of God’s people to be separate from the ungodly,
especially in marriage (6:1, 2); the slavery to sin (6:5); the sweeping violence
(6:11, 12—Hebrew ‘chamas’, which means trampling on the rights
of others). And Mrs Noah’s world lay under divine surveillance (6:5, 6; 7:3, 13) as does ours.

Mrs Noah knew her world was under God’s judgment. Her
husband had told her that God had shared with him His intentions to destroy
the earth with water because of its corruption (6:13, 17). God also gave Noah
specific directions for building an Ark (meaning ‘box’) to preserve
his family and a pair of each air-breathing, land-dwelling member of the animal
kingdom.

I suggest that Mrs Noah would not have had a problem with this.
She would have been well aware that her God had created her ancestor Eve to
be Adam’s helper. The events of creation week and the details of her
family tree were probably recorded on clay tablets which were later loaded
on to the Ark.

She would have known that God revealed His commands to Adam
before He gave him Eve to be his helper (2:15, 18). This man was responsible
to God for himself and his wife. He was the one called to account when they
disobeyed God even though she started it (3:9–12). Of course God communicated
with Eve as well, and Mrs Noah had her own personal relationship with her Creator.
It was just that this Creator relayed His instructions to His people via their
leaders.

Faithful help

Mrs Noah was not a nobody but rather a real somebody fulfilling
the feminine role. She obeyed God by submitting to her husband’s leadership.
Noah, being a righteous man (6:9) would not have abused his position or corrupted
it into tyranny. She faithfully helped Noah during several hundred years of
farming (5:29), up to 120 years of boat-building, more than a year of zoo-keeping
(under divine guidance) on an enormous houseboat, then during a few hundred
years of farming with side-line in wine-making (Genesis 9). She also supported
him in his lay-preaching ministry (2 Peter 2:5).

Nobody without faith could have done what she did. How otherwise
could she have backed her husband in building a large ocean-going vessel to
escape a flood when she had never even seen rain (2:5–6)? Without faith
how could she have raised three sons with hammering in her ears as a constant
reminder of the coming doom? Without faith how could she have stepped on the
Ark and left nearly everything behind? She must have believed that God could
and would save them as He had promised. She was probably aware that her husband
was destined for a special service to God when she married him. Lamech had
named Noah from a word meaning ‘rest’ because God had revealed
to him that this son would bring rest to God’s people (5:29).

Crucial to Mrs Noah’s faith was the fact that her eyes
had to be fixed on the world to come after the Flood. She lived and raised
her family for more than half her life in a world she knew was doomed for destruction.
She had to teach Shem, Ham and Japheth to live differently from their friends
and to prepare themselves for this future world. She couldn’t allow herself
or her family to become too attached to the temporary trappings around them.

Close family

She must have fostered a very close family life. They had to
be close because they had to move further and further away from the beliefs
and practices of the people around them. They also had to prepare for a time
when there wouldn’t be anyone else. During the long years of working
and waiting she and Noah did have the support of believing members of their
wider family circle.

There was paternal grandfather Lamech (not to be confused with
the Lamech of Chapter 4) who died five years before the Flood and was great-grandfather
of Methuselah (the oldest man who ever lived—969 years) who survived
till the year before the Flood.

God had mercy on them in their old age and didn’t put
them through the ordeal. Nor did he put babies or children or adolescents through
it; he timed the arrival of offspring to fit in with His sovereign plan. Four
married couples went through it—the senior pair to manage and the other
three to multiply.

There must have been a sense in which Mrs Noah was free from
the bondage of other people’s opinions—free to obey God no matter
what. She was the only believing female of her generation to board the Ark.
There were only three in the next generation—the young women who became
her son’s wives. Were they brought to faith by her husband’s preaching
and her prayers? They were to have an absolutely crucial place in human history.
From their descendants all the nations of the earth originated (Genesis 10 and 11).

This woman a nobody? She must have been one of the greatest women who ever lived.

What fortitude she must have possessed to sustain her lonely
position; to face the destruction of everything she knew. What spiritual strength
would have been necessary to endure the hostility and ridicule. What patience
she exercised to wait till her husband was 500 years old before she bore her
first son, Shem. Nothing but sheer steel could have weathered the cries of
those drowning. Great grace must have been granted for her to be shut in with
seven others and many thousands of animals for more than a year. Only uncommon
courage could face what she first viewed from the mountains of Ararat where
the Ark lodged: the totally transformed world with its fossil reminders of
death and destruction.

This woman a nobody? She must have been one of the greatest
women who ever lived. It matters not that her name wasn’t recorded. She
impacted the world’s history forever. How did she do it? She did it by
being a godly wife and mother. She was married to a ‘saviour’,
Noah, who was used of God to save believers from physical death in the Flood
and therefore the world’s population from extinction. Her oldest son,
Shem, was the ancestor of the Jews. From this nation came Jesus, the incarnate
Creator and Saviour. By His death on the cross He gave salvation from spiritual
death to all believers. He is the only One who can save us from everlasting
destruction in Hell. He is the only

One who can deliver us when our world is destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:7). He has promised to come back and collect His own (2 Peter 3:4ff).